Kicking the Meat Habit Has Made 10 Men and 10 Women Sizzle With Passion – and Compassion

Jaipur – As People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India’s 2016 Cutest Vegetarian Next Door contest heats up, Shivi Sharmaa of Jaipur, Rajasthan, may just take home the prize. She’s beaten out hundreds of other contestants from across India to become one of the 20 finalists to advance to the last round. PETA will ultimately crown two winners, one man and one woman, the 2016 Cutest Vegetarians Next Door – and members of the public can help it choose by voting for their favourite finalists on PETA’s website.

“On average, vegetarians are slimmer and healthier than meat-eaters – and over their lifetime, they spare many animals the horrors of factory farms, slaughterhouses, and fishing nets”, says PETA nutritionist Bhuvaneshwari Gupta. “One look at our radiant finalists confirms that there’s nothing more attractive than compassion.”

“The best thing of being a [vegetarian] and in fact a vegan is the freshness and satisfaction that you get after every meal”, says Sharmaa. “I think earth provides us enough to fulfil our appetite and no animal needs to die in order to satisfy our taste buds.”

In addition to causing animal suffering on a massive scale, eating meat and dairy foods has been conclusively linked to heart disease, strokes, diabetes, cancer, and obesity. Also, a United Nations report concluded that animal agriculture is “one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global”.

Voting will be open to the public until 28 October, and the winners will be announced on 2 November.

For more information, please visit PETAIndia.com. To see all the finalists’ photos and comments – and vote for your favourites – please click here. PETA will select the winners based on several factors, including vote count. Read the full contest details here.